Party on the Rooftop
by museumheist
Summary: Artemis has to admit she never expected to see Batman sitting criss-cross-applesauce on a picnic blanket. Pre-Traught, post Invasion finale. For 2013 Traught Week.


Written for 2013 Traught Week.

* * *

Batman has a policy about maintaining his presence in Gotham City: it has to be never-ending, else the rogue gallery would get unruly (as if they weren't already, which is why Artemis thinks it's sort of uneccesary). It made spending time away from the city—whether it be on League business or Wayne Enterprises business—a bit of a challenge. Before Dick, and while Dick was still young, that meant asking Jim to strategically use the bat signal, to lay booby traps, to do any number of things to maintain the illusion Batman remained in the city.

With Dick being an adult these days, the solution was much simpler: have him act as Batman in Bruce's stead. So with Batman away on League business at the time, it fell to Dick to take up the cowl for a few days.

Or weeks. With Bats, it's hard to tell.

Which brings them to this phone call.

"So, are you up for a patrol in Gotham?"

She presses the phone between her cheek and shoulder so she can use both hands—washing dishes with one hand hadn't been working out—and considers.

She could.

Part of her feels like she _should_.

And part of her definitely wants to. Lately, working with the team has consisted of her training the younger members, with recon missions and covert ops thrown in here and there. Much as she loves it, there's something about patrolling she finds herself craving more and more. It fits in better with what she always imagined herring to be and, well, she's a sucker for that sort of stuff. It might be somehow old-fashioned, but she missed going from rooftop to rooftop, knowing the layout of a city backwards and frontwards, tracking down leads, and—she had to admit—she even missed rooftop stakeouts a little.

So all in all, she nearly leaps at Dick's offer.

But.

"What about Tim? Or Babs?"

"I want to give them a break. Bruce hasn't exactly been giving them an easy time of it lately."

Suddenly Artemis' mind is filled with the memory of her room, lit only by a lamp that's bent over her textbooks, the clock on her desk reading two in the morning, and the only thing she can concentrate on is keeping her eyes open because patrol with Green Arrow went way too long, but damn if she was going to say anything—

Yeah, she knew exactly what Dick meant.

So she pulls her hands out of the soapy water and grabs a towel. Once one hand is dry she pulls the phone from her shoulder, as if the firm grip on her phone will come across in her response.

"Sure, I can spare a night or two."

One of her favorite things about talking to Dick on the phone is that even though she can't actually see him, she can still always _see_ him, just from his voice.

Like right now: she can see him smiling when he answers, "Good." It's as if he didn't even consider the possibility she would say no.

She should bring that up—she should take issue with it.

Instead she smiles back. "Usual place?"

(Maybe they shouldn't have a usual place, but they did because Artemis and Wally were hardly going to let little Robin patrol on his own when Bats was away.)

"Usual place."

—-

Patrolling Gotham has always made her feel… complete, in some way. The city is her home. The grit, the smog, the grime and the soot—they're familiar. They ground her, remind her of where she came from and thus of where she is now. The city has thrown plenty at her in the past few years, and she's weathered it all, and she's emerged stronger for it.

Working with Green Arrow in Star City had been some of the best experience she'd had as a superhero, but this was where her roots were. She inhaled a lungful of air, let the tang of it roll over her tongue and sit in her lungs before finally exhaling.

She'd be lying if she said the idea of tonight's patrol didn't excite her. That she was doing it with one of the few people that had as much respect for and understanding of the city as she did—well, that was a bonus.

Their "usual place" isn't exactly the most glamorous spot—the rooftop of a building that housed a laundromat, a convenience store, and apartments. Nothing out of the ordinary, sitting in the midst of one of Gotham's seediest neighborhoods.

The apartment where Artemis and her mother used to live is only a few blocks north.

She thinks she's showing up early. She thinks she'll have a chance to take in the city around her, take in all the people going to and fro, watch the guy in the pizza joint across the street pick his nose—all that good stuff.

Had Dick just been standing there in the Batman cape and cowl (Bruce insists on Dick wearing the costume in an attempt to keep the villains in line in some way—Artemis thinks that's a waste of time in a city of Gotham, but it's not her call), she might have been mildly surprised and they would have started patrol early. All a perfectly proportional response.

But that's not how it happens, because Dick isn't just standing there in the cape and cowl. Sure, the cape and cowl are there, but he's not standing.

Seeing Batman seated—like, "criss-cross-applesauce" seated—is jarring enough, but seeing him sitting on top of a picnic blanket and accompanied by a basket she assumes is filled with food and other picnic essentials just launches the entire scenario into absurdity.

So really, she can't be blamed for taking several seconds to simply stare blankly.

"You're going to let flies in if you don't shut your mouth, Tigress," he finally says.

It's enough to snap her into forming coherent thought and speech.

"Are you aware of how ridiculous you look?"

"Fully," he answers, not even taking a second to consider. There's even a hint of that self-assured, ridiculously confident and glowing smile she knows all too well.

She narrows her eyes. "I have to ask, because it's impossible for me to pretend it isn't there, so: what's up with the picnic equipment?"

"I would have thought it was obvious."

"It's obvious you plan on having a picnic, yes," she agrees. "What isn't obvious is something I consider highly more important, which is _why_."

"Because I think you need some time away from the team and, well, I wanted to do something…"

"So you thought picnic on a scummy rooftop in Gotham?"

"I thought dinner with one of my best friends in the city we grew up in."

He says it so simply, so nonchalantly, as if nothing in the world were more obvious than what _exactly _he had in mind. And despite that, the meaning of what he says—the gravity of it—is enough to knock the breath out of her for a few seconds.

Dick Grayson may have lived with Bruce Wayne and never dealt with the worst Gotham had to offer, but Robin had faced it head on every night for year after year. Dick Grayson had grown up in a manor outside of Gotham, but Robin had grown up out here, just as she had.

And he meant that, when he said what he said, and even though she's always known it, sometimes… well, sometimes she forgets. She takes a second to mentally kick herself.

"So if we're having dinner on a rooftop—in uniform, I might add—"

"I fail to see how that's relevant to anything."

She fixes him a look before continuing as if he hadn't said anything: "Who _is_ patrolling?"

"Robin and Batgirl are more than capable."

Artemis frowned. "But you said—"

"As if you ever let anyone keep you from patrol," Dick says, and now the smile finally breaks, and it's really weird and oddly frightening to see Batman smiling like this. "You think I could get them to take a night off?"

She smiles. "No, I guess not."

"So," Dick says, moving to open the picnic basket, "are you going to join me, or am I going to have to eat all of this by myself?"

She doesn't answer at first, as if mulling the offer over. Then, heaving a mighty sigh, she finally sits down opposite the man in the Batman costume.

"I suppose I have nothing better to do," she says, beginning to help him unload the food.

They're halfway through eating when she turns to him and says:

"So we are still patrolling, right?"

* * *

**notes:** This exists several months/maybe a year post-Invasion, but I don't really address Wally's death because I like to think that Dick and Artemis are doing okay by this point. Having each other helps. I won't go into it fully here—eventually I might write a post-Invasion piece that really does address how Wally's death affects Dick and Artemis' relationship (if I do the preview will be on my tumblr), but this didn't seem like the fic to do it. so.


End file.
